`Tarzan' has lots of swing, but little zing

May 11, 2006|By Chris Jones, Tribune theater critic.

NEW YORK — Tarzan and Disney have never so badly needed their Jane.

Prior to the arrival of the sassy young Victorian who teaches Ape Boy a thing or two about the pleasures of hairless skin, Disney's first Broadway musical since "The Lion King" looks like it will be swinging forlornly from a bar that Julie Taymor set terribly high.

For most of the first act, Bob Crowley's visually splendiferous show, which reportedly cost nearly $20 million, feels like the music video to a pretentious Phil Collins concept album, replete with designer jungle vines, overly opaque storytelling, and a contradictory desire to be both a primal, revisionist tale with Taymoresque dignity (no "Me Tarzan, You Jane" here) and also a family musical that sticks virtually its entire cast on elaborate bungee cords.

Then Jane, played by the delightful Jen Gambatese, shows up and actually gives the show some life, whimsy and, above all, humanity.

And instead of trying to let rigging and visual effects drive the show (as in an opening sequence that makes the anti-theatrical mistake of an opening number in which you can see none of the singers), Crowley, a proven visual genius but a newcomer to directing, decides to trust his human storytellers and let his glorious verdant visuals be what they should be--thrilling backdrops that occasionally jump into the story in its service.

And by the time Jane finally has decided to stick around for lifelong jungle pleasures, "Tarzan" has found its core and offered enough excitement to please its audience and snag reasonable notices. The show won't be the monster hit that was "Lion King," but if expectations had not been running so high, it surely would have exceeded most of them. But then that's the curse with which the mouse must live.

You can't help but think this show needed an out-of-town tryout. Then the lousy first half-hour might have now been gone, and the hard-toiling apes (man, do these actors earn their paychecks) would have looked less like they were sporting 1980s mullets.

The immensely talented former Chicagoan Chester A. Gregory II, who plays the second comic banana here, does his best to lighten things, but can't do so without more actual funny material. The musical numbers would have--as they say in the trades--landed. And perhaps the focus of the story would have shifted to show us less of Tarzan and his ape mom (played with dignity by Merle Dandridge) and more of Tarzan and his girlfriend, which is what we really care about.

Right now, the emotional climax of the show--Jane's decision to stay--lasts all of about 30 seconds and is dominated by Strickland's crushing need to get the necessary harness attached to Gambatese's back for one final swing.

There are at least a few powerful pop-rock numbers in the serviceable score, especially Jane's melodic ditty "Waiting for this Moment," which is accompanied by visual effects unparalleled in their beauty and creativity outside of the Cirque du Soleil's "Ka."

People probably will differ as to the level of excitement and aesthetic value offered by all the people in the air. But it's a gutsy choice and a spectacular one. The cast of "Tarzan" literally turns itself upside down to try putting on a show. And when romance and families finally bloom, there amid Crowley's pulsing, shimmering vines, everyone eventually gets one.